Placing calls to trainers, I think I've found the one for me. He's very well spoken, dresses well, and went to a college that I respect. He's studied snowboarding, and knows all about the sport - the gear, the history of the game, the top athelets who board, the best hills on which to board. I'm depending on this guy to get me through. He knows it all. Some say he's not the best trainer, but that's only because he's never actually snowboarded.
That.... that would be stupid. I would never want a snow-boarding instructor who had never boarded. I also wouldn't want one who taught me the theory behind boarding, but never actually what to do.
The theoretical has overtaken the practical in just about every arena of our lives. We say to our leaders that talk is cheap, but talk is all we seem to value.
A co-worker of mine once got into an argument about helping those dying of starvation overseas - his argument was that we shouldn't be helping people in Africa or other parts of the world because we have our own poor and sick and hungry. Regardless of the factual errors in his statements (the starvation problem in Africa is more serious than the starvation problem in Denver), he also doesn't care enough to do anything about it - he doesn't volunteer or donate money to charities that do this.
We know what we are supposed to say, what we are supposed to think, but we don't do anything. I don't care if you understand the problem of poverty, and the right or wrong ways to go about it. If you're not going about it, what does it matter?
We can talk all we want about missions work, and the value of missions and the right way and the wrong way to do missions, but if we don't do missions, what good are we?
I can hear sermons all day long about the right/wrong music with which to worship, but would we for once stop theorizing and actually worship?!
Yesterday I heard someone say that helping the poor purely out of "humanitarian" reasons isn't helping the poor the most, that we have to love God first. This is true, but helping the poor and feeding the hungry out of humanitarianism is still helping them. It is still saving a life. And that is still close to the heart of God.
It isn't an easy question, but I think it is one worth asking:
What should we choose -
- to run with what we have and act upon our theories, and realize that we're not perfect, and work on our theories by the seat of our pants and risk it all to do what we should, or
- to continue to speculate forever about the exact right way to do things, to keep splitting hairs to find out how it should be done, if someone else does it, for we ourselves never will.
Who would hire a CEO who has never been in business, has just read about it? a pilot who had never flown, just knew about aerodynamics? a personal trainer who had only been to a gym for tours, or to give tours? a president who had never led a business, family or other government office? a professor of creative writing who had never written? a leader to train others for missions or feeding the poor or worship who had only read about it, and never actually participated in it?
Any of these people could only teach on the theoretical. They cannot teach application because they themselves have never had to or chosen to apply it. They should have never gotten their position.
Then there's the leaders who do know what to do but don't teach it.
I don't know which one is more harmful, and I don't know what the answer is.
I just had to rant. I was thinking about ranting, and trying to figure out wha the best way to rant would be.. but then I was just theorizing.
Post a Comment